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The anode of a two-chamber methane-producing microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) was poised at +0.200 V vs. the standard hydrogen electrode (SHE) and continuously fed (1.08 gCOD/L d) with acetate in anaerobic mineral medium. A gas mixture (carbon dioxide 30 vol.% in N2) was continuously added to the cathode for both pH control and carbonate supply. At the anode, 94% of the influent acetate was removed, mostly through anaerobic oxidation (91% coulombic efficiency); the resulting electric current was mainly recovered as methane (79% cathode capture efficiency). Low biomass growth was observed at the anode and ammonium was transferred through the cationic membrane and concentrated at the cathode. These findings suggest that the MEC can be used for the treatment of low-strength wastewater, with good energy efficiency and low sludge production.

Systemic sclerosis (SSc, scleroderma) is characterized by fibrosis of the skin and internal organs, autoantibodies and diffuse microangiopathy. In SSc, fibrillin-1 microfibrils are disorganized and unstable. Mutations in FBN1 gene and anti-fibrillin- 1 autoantibodies have also been reported in SSc patients. Fibrillin-1 microfibrils sequester in the extracellular matrix the latent form of the potent pro-fibrotic cytokine transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β). We herein report the effects of SSc sera on the deposition of fibrillin-1 and microfibril-associated glycoprotein-1 (MAGP-1) and the expression of focal adhesion molecules by dermal blood (B-MVECs) and lymphatic (Ly-MVECs) microvascular endothelial cells. Cells were challenged with sera from SSc patients, naïve or under cyclophosphamide (CYC) treatment, and healthy controls. Fibrillin-1/MAGP-1 synthesis and deposition and the expression of αvβ3 integrin/ phosphorylated-FAK and vinculin/actin were evaluated by immunofluorescence and quantified by morphometric analysis. Fibrillin-1 and MAGP-1 co-localized in all experimental conditions, forming a honeycomb pattern in B-MVECs and a dense mesh of short segments in Ly-MVECs. In B-MVECs, fibrillin-1/MAGP-1 production and αvβ3 integrin expression significantly decreased upon challenge with sera from naïve SSc patients compared with healthy controls. Vinculin was overexpressed in the cells exposed to the serum of naïve patients with the diffuse form of SSc. B-MVECs challenged with sera from CYC-treated SSc patients showed fibrillin-1, αvβ3 integrin and vinculin levels comparable to those of controls. Ly-MVECs challenged with SSc sera did not differ from controls in the expression of any of the molecules assayed. Due to the critical role of fibrillin-1 in sequestering TGF-β in the extracellular matrix, its decreased deposition by B-MVECs challenged with SSc sera might contribute to dermal fibrosis. CYC treatment might limit fibrosis through the maintenance of physiologic fibrillin-1 synthesis and deposition by B-MVECs. CYC-induced normalization of αvβ3 integrin expression may restore effective interaction of endothelial cells with fibrillin. Since vinculin is necessary for angiogenesis, its normalization upon CYC treatment may contribute to restore the impaired angiogenesis found in SSc., Italian Journal of Anatomy and Embryology, Vol 118, No 2 (Supplement) 2013

Spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is a unique tool for large scale Earth observation, but the current generation of SAR sensors suffers from some fundamental limitations with regard to their imaging and mapping capabilities. To overcome these limitations, several new instrument architectures and SAR imaging modes have been suggested that employ digital beamforming (DBF), multiple aperture data recording and MIMO SAR tech-niques. This paper provides a critical review of these techniques and makes some suggestions for further im-provements. Special attention is given to advanced DBF and MIMO SAR concepts for ultra-wide swath imaging.

Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA) is one of the most successful procedures in Orthopaedic Surgery, with good clinical results and high survival rate in more than 90% of the cases at long-term follow-up. Since the increase of population's mean age, worsening of articular degenerative alterations, and articular sequelae related to previous fractures, there is a persistent growing of the number of knee arthroplasties in every country each year, with expected increase of complications rates. Painful TKA is considered an unusual complication, but several reports focus on this challenging clinical issue.Common causes of painful TKA may be divided as early or late, and in referred, periarticular or intra-articular. Among the early, we recall implant instability (related to surgical and technical mistakes) and problems of extensor mechanism (patella not resurfaced, malalignment of femoral, tibial, or patellar component, tendons failure or degeneration). Late causes of painful TKA are almost related to aseptic loosening and infection, but also, even if unusual, reflex sympathetic dystrophy, synovitis, and hypersensitivity to metal implants are represented.Hypersensitivity to metal is a clinical issue with significative increase, but to date without a specific characterization. The Authors report about incidence, clinical features, and diagnostic pathways of hypersensitivity to metal implants, focusing on the prevention of this challenging problem.

Fibrillin microfibrils constitute a scaffold for elastin deposition in the wall of arteries and form the anchoring filaments that connect the lymphatic endothelium to surrounding elastic fibers. We previously reported that fibrillin is deposited in a honeycomb pattern in bovine arterial endothelial cells, which also deposit microfibril-associated glycoprotein (MAGP)-1, whereas thoracic duct endothelial cells form an irregular web. The present immunohistochemical study was designed to verify whether lymphatic and blood human dermal microvascular endothelial cells (HDMECs) isolated from human foreskin by the sequential use of a pan-endothelial marker, CD31, and the lymphatic specific marker, D2-40, deposit fibrillin and MAGP-1. In both cell types, fibrillin and MAGP-1 co-localized and were deposited with different patterns of increasing complexity co-existing in the same culture. Fibrillin microfibrils formed a wide-mesh honeycomb leaving fibrillin-free spaces that were gradually filled. This modality of fibrillin deposition, similar to that of bovine large artery endothelial cells, was basically the same in blood and lymphatic HDMECs. In some lymphatic HDMECs, fibrillin was initially deposited as uniformly scattered short fibrillin strands probably as a result of anchoring filaments carried over from the vessels of origin. Our findings show that blood and lymphatic endothelial cells participate in fibrillin deposition in human skin.

A painful knee prosthesis is, unfortunately, a condition whose possible causes are not always easily diagnosed. As a consequence, it can be difficult to resolve.

Burla F., Del Villano M., Stachi P., Paba G., Turbiaux Marcel. L'examen psychodiagnostique : étude de cas et méthodologie au service médical des chemins de fer italiens (F.S.). In: Bulletin de psychologie, tome 48 n°418, 1994. Psychologie du travail – Ergonomie dans les transports. pp. 135-139.

The authors report a case of left common iliac artery injury, as a complication of diskectomy, in a 57 year-old male patient, with herniated disk at L4-L5. A review shows that L4-L5 disk space is the most common site for this rare complication of lumbar disk surgery.

The Authors report analyses on 83 cases of brain haemorrhage which were conducted over a period of 6 years. On the basis of previous studies made by the same authors, a selection was made from patients whose survival index rating did not exceed 8.1. These patients were treated only with medical and reviving therapies. In this work we attempt to formulate some considerations regarding the prognosis of brain haemorrhage on the basis of clinical and tomodensitometric data.

Staggered SAR is an innovative synthetic aperture radar (SAR) concept, based on the continuous variation of the pulse repetition interval (PRI). This concept allows high-resolution imaging of a wide continuous swath without the need for a long antenna with multiple apertures.

Precise knowledge of the far-field antenna patterns associated with individual receive channels of a multichannel SAR system is of fundamental importance to operate the radar instrument in advanced imaging modes. A prominent example is Tandem-L which uses a large deployable parabolic reflector that is illuminated by a digital feed array with multiple receive channels. This architecture enables, in combination with an appropriate onboard signal processing, the acquisition of a wide image swath by simultaneously recording multiple scattered radar echoes with a set of narrow elevation beams that are steered in real time towards the angles of the arriving wavefronts. As such a multiple elevation beam technique is prone to range ambiguities, optimized real-time beamformers are considered that maximize their gain in the direction of the desired radar echo and suppress, at the same time, the range ambiguous radar echoes arriving from different angles. The implementation of these advanced real-time beamforming techniques requires, however, precise knowledge of the amplitude and phase of the secondary far-field antenna patterns associated with the excitation of single feed elements. As it is impossible to measure these complex antenna patterns on ground with sufficient accuracy, we propose here a novel technique that enables a highly accurate in-orbit measurement of the relative amplitude and phase of the far-field secondary antenna patterns associated with individual feed elements. The key idea is to collect SAR data in space by a set of dedicated calibration flights, where the signals from all feed elements are simultaneously recorded in a transparency mode, i.e., without any real-time beamforming on board the satellite. The multichannel data are then transferred to the ground, where the relative antenna pattern information is extracted and calibrated beamforming coefficients are derived, as required for the implementation of advanced SAR modes. This paper provides an overview of the proposed multichannel antenna calibration technique and demonstrates the superior SAR imaging performance that can be achieved by employing this technique in conjunction with a series of especially designed calibration flights over natural terrain with known topography.

Mixed microbial culture polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) production has been investigated by using olive oil mill wastewater (OMW) as no-cost feedstock in a multi-stage process, also involving phenols removal and recovery. The selection of PHA-storing microorganisms occurred in a sequencing batch reactor (SBR), fed with dephenolized and fermented OMW and operated at different organic loading rates (OLR), ranging from 2.40 to 8.40 gCOD/L d. The optimal operating condition was observed at an OLR of 4.70 gCOD/L d, which showed the highest values of storage rate and yield (339 ± 48 mgCOD/gCOD h and 0.56 ± 0.05 COD/COD, respectively). The OLR applied to the SBR largely affected the performance of the PHA-accumulating reactor, which was fed through multiple pulsed additions of pretreated OMW. From an overall mass balance, involving all the stages of the process, an abatement of about 85% of the OMW initial COD (chemical oxygen demand) was estimated whereas the conversion of the influent COD into PHA was about 10% (or 22% by taking into account only the COD contained in the pretreated OMW, which is directly fed to the PHA production stages). Overall, polymer volumetric productivity (calculated from the combination of both the SBR and the accumulation reactor) accounted for 1.50 gPHA/L d.